Vaccine Developed Against Ebola

New submitter Lurching writes "Scientists have developed a vaccine that protects mice against a deadly form of the Ebola virus. First identified in 1976, Ebola fever kills more than 90% of the people it infects. The researchers say that this is the first Ebola vaccine to remain viable long-term and can therefore be successfully stockpiled. The results are reported in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (abstract)."

Comments

Thank goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

The mice will be spared.

Re:Thank goodness

[Samantha Wright]

Not really:

The vaccine protects 80% of the mice injected with the deadly strain,

If they say you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, then you have to kill a few hundred mice and rats to make a vaccine. Do your part to save the mice—force your kids to grow up to be computational chemists! (Routine simulated biology is probably on the "fifteen-to-twenty" years off range; i.e. conceivable but challenging and difficult to commercialize.)

Re:Thank goodness

[antifoidulus]

Obligatory Futurama:

Amy: "Like the heaps of dead monkeys."
Professor: "Science can't move forward without heaps!"

Re:Thank goodness

[hat_eater]

Science moves forward by heaps and mounds!

Re:Thank goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure where you are shopping for your mice but where I shop you can get them for between $90 (http://jaxmice.jax.org/strain/002376.html) and $2000 (http://jaxmice.jax.org/strain/010562.html) depending on how the stock is maintained.
Making targeted genetic modifications in mice from scratch costs about $15,000-$20,000

Re:Thank goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no conceivable way to do vaccine research without animals. Computational chemistry or biology does not apply here. The gold standard for a vaccine is whether or not it protects from challenge with the the pathogen, and secondarily if it generates a good neutralizing antibody titer and robust T cell response. These are things we know very little about in the big picture. We know enough of the variables to build testable models, but we don't know >99$% of the variables. This is something non-biologists fail to understand, and that's why we've got to use animals in research for the foreseeable future--probably 150-200 years, not 15-20.

Followed by weaponization?

[GrumblyStuff]

I mean, sure, it's against some big ol' treaties but wouldn't the first step be to nullify its effect on your own troops/people?

[/conspiracy]

Re:Followed by weaponization?

[HopefulIntern]

Hehe, and interesting to see that you consider HIV something that soldiers might contract "on the job"... I thought that this particular part of a soldier's "job" was against article 27 of the Geneva Convention...

There's nothing in the Geneva Convention about Thai hookers..

Re:Followed by weaponization?

[ArsenneLupin]

There's nothing in the Geneva Convention about Thai hookers..

Actually, There is:

ARTICLE 27

Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity.

Women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault.

Without prejudice to the provisions relating to their state of health, age and sex, all protected persons shall be treated with the same consideration by the Party to the conflict in whose power they are, without any adverse distinction based, in particular, on race, religion or political opinion.

However, the Parties to the conflict may take such measures of control and security in regard to protected persons as may be necessary as a result of the war.

Re:Followed by weaponization?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing in the Geneva Convention about Thai hookers..

Actually, There is:

ARTICLE 27

[...] Women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault.

So, ENFORCED prostitution is banned, but if they do prostitution out of their own will, then it is not banned.

Re:Followed by weaponization?

[Anne Thwacks]

The military vaccinates their people

This is a disease that occurs in the Congo (Zaire), not the USA. The militias there vaccinate everyone else with bullets and rape, but don't do much for their own.

Re:Followed by weaponization?

[kusanagi374]

Of course they might contract it on the job! What about having someone else's blood splattered all over your face, when you have no idea of where he might've been before dying? You don't have to necessarily fuck someone up the ass to get HIV.

Re:Followed by weaponization?

[mcgrew]

I was stationed in Thailand in 1974. Unlike most of our western countries, hookers are respeced, even revered, in Thailand. Nobody has to force them.

Re:That's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

no offense, but i hope you're not in charge for something important... :P

Re:That's nice

[dargaud]

I find your ideas interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter...
I mean, seriously you are so full of shit. I'm not going to waste my time picking your argument apart, just a few choice quotes:

17 labs on Earth working to weaponize Ebola

Woah, that's a precise number. Out of your magic 8 ball ?

Mendellian methods

It's called 'evolution'. And the radical terrorists don't believe in it, haven't you heard ?

give off neutrino emissions that make it glow like the sun to spy satellites

Learn the difference between neutrons and neutrinos. The latter are incredibly hard to detect (and currently at the heart of the 'faster than light' debate, but I digress), it takes a detector the size of a mountain.

YES!!

[muckracer]

Finally monkey meat again! :-P

Re:Tiny battle against the war.

[Interfacer]

I work for a big pharma company, as a sysadmin. I don't know much about the science though.

Any company finding a cure for HIV or cancer or the common cold would have its stock skyrocket, turning the board instant billionaires.
Somehow I have trouble believing that they would suppress a cure, just for the purpose of being evil at their own expense.

And it isn't a cure, in case you missed that. It is a vaccine. Like the vaccine against smallpox. Once you get smallpox or ebola, your chances still suck.

Autism Concerns

[chitokutai]

My mouse is hemorrhaging blood from all the pores on his body, but at least he doesn't have autism!

This post was brought to you by the considerate folks from the McCarthy Institute of Better Science